I agree, we must be flexible, not pharisee-like about how youngsters or adults should "couple up", while at the same time we must stick to what the Bible REQUIRES for "coupling up" - an equal yoke. In the case of a virgin living under her father's roof, in addition to an equal yoke, it also requires the father's permission and bride price of a virgin. Not all single women are virgins living under her father's roof, but the equal yoke requirement applies to everyone. From what I see in the Bible, if a father kicks his daughter out of the house at 18 and sends her off to college where she loses her virginity, he's lost his say in who she marries, because he has caused her to commit fornication, like a man who divorces his wife, he causes her to commit adultery while her first husband is still alive, because women will look for another husband to care for them when the first one refuses to. This is all coming from a woman who was abandoned by her father while still in the womb, but the Bible seems to back this idea up, that a father loses say when he expects his daughter to move out, and doesn't protect her virginity. When my father denied being my father, my Heavenly Father saw to it that I had an equal yoke, once I stopped denying His say in who I married.
While I can't think of one instance where there is NOT a third party involved in the match making or marriage proposal (notice the lack of dating or courtship in the Bible), the Bible gives a variety of examples of how/when HE chooses a wife for a man. Look at how Abigail, recently widowed, became David's wife. David had his servants offer her a proposal to marry him. We don't see any consulting of her father or close male relative there. 1 Samuel 25:40-42. We see in the Book of Ruth, that when Ruth was widowed, she determined to not go back to her father's house, but chose instead to marry one of her husband's relatives, according to the Heavenly Law of Moses. She chose, with Naomi's guidance, but she did so according to the Laws of Israel, and the family she had married into. Jacob set his heart on Rachel, but his Uncle Laban saw to it that he married Leah, too. Jacob's father, Isaac, had never met either young lady, but he had sent Jacob to Laban to take from the daughter of Laban a wife. Genesis 28:2. The third party in this instance was Laban, but Jacob seemed to be a party involved, too. The Book of Jubilees says that Jacob told his mother he had planned for a long time to marry one of Laban's daughters, long before Isaac told him to. Why? Because Jacob was a man who followed the Law and he knew these were the female relatives he was to marry. When Rebecca and Isaac agreed and sent him to Laban, and Laban and his daughters agreed, this was all confirming it was Yah's will. Despite the mockery on that in our culture, the Law considers it an honorable thing to marry a cousin or close relative in Israel of an equal yoke than someone raised in a different culture or religious tradition. My husband and I were raised in different cultures and religious traditions, but by the time we met, we were an equal yoke.
My family and I have never been to the "retreats" either, and honestly, one of the reasons we aren't more involved in the forums and such is that we SOMETIMES, not always (but mixed messages), get the same vibes here that we got at church. We left church because those in the church seemed too busy preventing and distracting us from reading, discussing, and walking out the Bible, to do it themselves.
I don't think we need pharisees to determine how/when a couple should marry, or make up their own rules, additional burdens or yokes on lonely single men and women that go beyond what the Bible requires. One reason marriage exists, according to the Bible, is because of all the sexual immorality in the world. It PREVENTS sexual immorality. Many parents and religious leaders insist men need to mature before marriage, but marriage usually is exactly what is needed to bring about maturity, and without it, the immature man or woman commits sexual sin dragging their lovers into the ditch with them. The key is what the Bible says - an equal yoke. Order is a good thing, but the pharisees leading young folks too often get things backwards and are misguiding the youth. The order is supposed to be equal yoke, then marriage, then maturity, not maturity, then marriage, then equal yoke. I know Christian, Jewish, and Messianic parents that tell their kids it's better to live in sexual sin for a while than get married before having an established career and college completed. For us, college isn't even on the radar. Neither my husband nor I finished college. We do alright financially. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah - none of them put off marriage for college. They had periods of financial instability, and they believed Yah would get them through, and He did. They endured famines. We all have. I was in my late twenties when I got married. Sexual immorality was there for my hubby and I both until we met and married. I didn't have a father to determine that, I didn't live under the roof of a family member, I was on my own, and my husband, too, when we met. Yah was the One who decided when we were ready, and who we should marry. The equal yoke was there.
I had a youth pastor who loaned me a car in college when my car that I was still paying on stopped running. He put an additional burden on me that hindered me rather than helping me. He required that I stay in college and get my degree while running up debt in order to use the car. Instead, he should have required me to dump my boyfriend and swear them off until marriage in an equal yoke, that would have been a more Biblical burden for a young, single girl under his guidance. That guidance would have actually helped me spiritually, physically, financially, emotionally, mentally, etc...
A man is to leave his father and mother and cling to his wife. That's apparently also true for the woman, to leave father and mother and cling to her husband. Rachel and Leah made up their own minds to leave Laban when he wasn't treating Jacob well. A woman does have a say, Rebecca was asked if she wanted to marry Isaac. Abraham's servants didn't just club her over the head and drag her by her hair. She said she willing to go. A good husband would want a wife to have a say in marrying him. YHUH also wants a bride who comes to him by free will. A father having say doesn't mean the daughter shouldn't.